Smoke over Western Russia

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Though Russia’s wildfires appeared to be abating, fires in two regions continued to produce heavy smoke on August 15, 2010. The top image shows fires outside of the city of Nizhniy Novgorod, east of Moscow. Dense white smoke rises from two large fires (which are outlined in red) and arcs north over the city. Several other fires burn in the forest east of the largest fires.

The second cluster of smoke-producing fires is in the Ural Mountains, lower image, roughly a thousand kilometers (about 620 miles) away from the first set of fires. Though these fires appear to be smaller, the sensor detected more of them. The thick clouds of smoke blow east from the fires.

The large image provides a broad view of Russia, including both sets of fires. The image is from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. The image is available in multiple resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response Team, the most detailed of which is the large image also published on the Earth Observatory.

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This image originally appeared on the Earth Observatory. Click here to view the full, original record.